With fellow Falcons Ben Woods, Lee Dickson, John Rudd and Jon Golding all in the starting XV, the Newcastle contingent was taken to six as hooker Andy Long joined the action from the bench.
 
The Saxons team was coached by Falcons coaching and technical director Steve Bates.

He said afterwards: “Every one of them can be very proud of their performance.

“I was very pleased with the way the whole team performed, especially bearing in mind that the side showed a number of changes to the line-up that beat Ireland in our opening game and had only a brief period to get to know each other.

“We dominated the first-half, but Italy were still very much in contention at the break.

“But in the second-half the players did exactly what was asked of them, and that response enabled us to gain control with four tries.”

Saxons captain Dowson said: “I think we did very well considering we’ve only been together for four days, and had some changes on top of that.

"The second half particularly was very sharp and I thought the tight five stood out, especially with their excellent driving lineouts. It was a much improved performance from last week."

Club mate Woods added: “It was a very physical first half, and our forwards’ performance paved the way for the backs to exploit the space in the second half.

"They were hard in contact and challenged our set piece, but we sorted it out in the second half and as they tired we scored two crucial tries that put us ahead, and we managed to keep the scoreboard ticking over.”